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While I was at home for Christmas, I stepped on the scale for the first time in months. This was after days and days of eating, stuffing, and lounging around the house. The scale said 151. Score! I’m normally around the 150 mark (FYI: I’m 5’8) and can fluctuate fairly frequently, but always just within a couple of pounds. Maybe 5 at the most. However, I don’t have a scale or go anywhere that has a scale. I simply just don’t pay attention to how much I weigh. I know how I feel. I know how I look. And I know how my pants fit… that’s the tell-tale sign right there. It seems that every few months I end up somewhere that has a scale and out of curiosity I hop on, which was the case at my parents house. I was very happy with 151. That tells me that I can continue to live my life how I am, enjoy a few days of stuffing my face, and still maintain a healthy weight.

So no big surprises. Life moves on. Then my dad happened to be standing there and that’s when I learned that I weigh more than he does. On a consistent basis. I average around 150. He averages between 140-145. Hmmm. He was just as surprised as I was. He thought I weighed closer to 130. HA!

And here’s where we take this moment to be reminded of several things about being healthy, physically and mentally:
1. Sometimes the number on the scale really is just a number.
2. There are other ways to judge your health than by that number.
3. Focusing on how you feel is more important than trying to reach some arbitrary number on a scale. This is perhaps the most important lesson to remember when thinking about our mental health in this situation.
4. Looks can be deceiving. Apparently I look skinnier than what people think of when they think 150 pounds. I don’t mind telling people my weight because I find it amusing to shatter their ideas of what 150 pounds looks like. A woman can be 150 and still be healthy and treat her body right. Why do so many of us seem to think that we need to be 135 pounds? Or 125? Or how much we weighed in high school? (Hello, I was 110 pounds. If I did that now my parents would surely commit me to hospital for help) Those are just numbers. Who cares? No seriously, WHO CARES?!

Finding out I weigh more than my dad definitely made me pause. Then I laughed and we went back to watching football.

Here’s to feeling good without needing a scale to tell us how we’re feeling,
Amy